Athletes often wear protective padding during sporting events. For example, American football and hockey players typically wear shoulder pads and other pads that must be secured to their body underneath a jersey. The pads include a hard outer shell with pads provided under the shell against the athlete's body. These pads protect the user, as referred to as the athlete herein, from repeated impacts encountered during play.
Straps and lacings are typically used to secure the shoulder pads to the athlete's body. The straps usually extend under the athlete's arms from the front chest portion to the rear back portion on each side of the athlete. A buckle may be used to adjust the length of each strap and tighten the pads on the athlete. The lacings are usually provided on the front of the pads to draw left and right chest portions together.
While the straps and lacings do an adequate job of securing the shoulder pads to the athlete's body, the straps and other adjustment mechanisms used to secure the pads to the body can be difficult to manage. Accordingly, it can be difficult and time consuming to properly adjust the straps and lacings such that the shoulder pads are properly secured on the athlete. Furthermore, the straps may be uncomfortable to the athlete when wearing the pads, since tightened straps will tend to cut into the body of the athlete and rub against the skin. The buckles or other adjustment mechanisms used to adjust the straps may also be uncomfortable to the wearer of the pads if these objects are in close proximity to the skin.
In addition to comfort issues, traditional football shoulder pads tend to damage the athlete's jersey. In particular, the hard outer shell of the shoulder pads as well as the buckles and other coarse surfaces rub against the athlete's jersey. The resulting friction between the jersey and the pads tends to result in abrasions and tears in the jersey over time.
In order to avoid abrasion between the jersey and the shoulder pads, jerseys are often loosely fitted on the athlete. However, in many contact sports, such as American football, this is a disadvantage, as a loose jersey may be easily grasped by an opponent and used to tackle the athlete. While close fitting jerseys are available, such as jerseys made with compression fabric, these close fitting jerseys tend to wear faster than the loose fitting jerseys, and many teams choose to utilize looser jerseys in an attempt to extend jersey life.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a device for quickly and easily securing shoulder pads to an athlete. It would also be desirable if such device was relatively simple and also comfortable for the athlete. Furthermore, it would be advantageous if such device could serve to limit wear and tear to the athlete's jersey over time. Additionally, it would be desirable if the device could facilitate the use of a tighter jersey on the athlete without resulting in increased jersey wear. While it would be advantageous to provide one or more of these or other advantageous features as may be apparent to those reviewing this disclosure, it should be recognized that the teachings disclosed herein extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of any appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned advantages.